Opposites - a Drarry Story

Opposites- Ch. 7

Harry pulled off the invisibility cloak, straining his eyes against the darkness. His eyes were starting to adjust a little, but it was still difficult to make out Malfoy's face in the pale moonlight.

"How'd you know I was here?" Harry asked.

Malfoy gave out a sound that sounded like a combination of a laugh and a scoff. "I heard you coming up the stairs. You're not exactly stealthy, Potter."

It felt strange, being on this tower. Harry had been up here on multiple occasions, and the few most recent of which hadn't exactly left the fondest of memories. Uneasy as it may feel to be standing at the top of the astronomy tower alone with Draco Malfoy, Harry knew he needed to calm down and push the past out of his mind.

"So what exactly do you want to discuss?" Harry asked cautiously.

"Well," started Malfoy, sounding as confident as ever. Harry wondered if, behind his seemingly rehearsed demeanor, if Draco too was feeling as on edge as he was at the moment. "It's common knowledge that this school year is different than the others- I mean, since we've started going to Hogwarts."

Harry was confused. He paused for a long moment before responding.

"How so?"

Although his view of him wasn't clear, Harry was almost sure Draco's eyes rolled impatiently.

"The school is no longer in danger, Potter, and it's been rebuilt. Hogwarts gets a fresh start. And..." Malfoy's smooth speech faltered slightly. "And... I--I think we should too."

Harry's mouth felt open.

An even longer silence ensued.

"We?" Harry repeated, dumbstruck. "why?"

Again Draco paused before responding.

"Because I think I deserve a second chance. I- I think we both do."

Harry didn't know what to say.

He remembered how he had felt on the train the other day, at the start of this term; like he couldn't bring himself to despise Draco like he had...

But just then, a thousand angry moments flashed through Harry's mind. Moments of mingled irritation and rage at this pale blond boy standing in front of him. Draco mocking him during a quidditch game, Hermione punching Malfoy in the nose, a cruel face stupefying Harry on the Hogwarts Express before taunting him and smashing his nose. That was the moment Harry had hating Malfoy the most; he didn't think he could ever truly get over that moment.

Harry felt his face start to grow hot as he considered the boy's request.

"No," Harry began, pushing all doubt out of consideration. "No. Why do you deserve a second chance from me? I don't even understand why you want one! I don't even understand why you're here! Everything you've done to me, eight years of hating each other and you're asking for me to just forgive you? If you're thinking you and I can just wipe our slates clean and be best mates all the sudden, I'm sorry Malfoy but you're bloody delusional."

Harry took a deep breath. He wasn't sure how Draco would respond to his words, but he stood by everything he said. This was Draco Malfoy. There was no way Harry could just forgive and forget... Right?

"I'm not my parents, Potter." This response came out quietly, less demanding, and his voice almost sounded hurt. "Everything they did... Everything I was forced to do... That wasn't me."

Draco said those last words cautiously, as though we was being listened to, as though the tattoo on his arm could hear his contradicting words.

And then Harry heard the last words he ever would've expected from Draco Malfoy.

"Please, Harry. Everyone hates me, I thought... I thought maybe you would understand how it feels."

A chill went up his spine at the speaking of his name. Malfoy had never called him that before...and then Harry was taken back, back eight years ago, to a bright day in Madame Malkin's robe shop, where he met this pale-faced boy; and that moment on the Hogwarts express when Harry rejected Draco's handshake , along with his offer to be friends. And then another moment flashed into Harry's mind: a moment from several years ago, when he was standing with his godfather in the kitchen of Grimmauld Place, and Sirius said something about how everyone has light and dark inside of them, and what matters is what they choose to act on.

How would things be different if Harry had taken Malfoy's hand that fateful first day at Hogwarts? Where would he be now, and who would his friends be? Harry wasn't quite sure he wanted to know, and yet as he stood here with a similar offer presented to him to that one years ago, he couldn't help but wonder.

Before Harry could say anything else, Draco spoke. "Look at my face, please. Look at my eyes."

A whisper of Lumos, and a bluish light brought Malfoy's face out of the darkness.

Harry was startled, they were standing much closer than he'd realized. The boy's pale gray eyes were illuminated by the wand light to appear almost eerie, staring into his with an intensity he hadn't expected. Malfoy averted his eyes and looked down for a moment, a single tear escaped from under his pale eyelashes and he clenched his eyes shut, furrowing his brow in an expression of apparent confusion, frustration, and regret.

"I just..." Draco said, his eyes meeting Harry's again. "I don't..."

"I don't hate you." Harry said, finishing Draco's sentence for him, reading his mind. "Not anymore." Draco nodded, and they both looked down, not knowing what to say, but knowing that they both meant it.

They were closer than ever now, Draco leaning back against the tower railing, and Harry next to him; looking at each other but not quite meeting eyes.

And then their foreheads met, blonde meeting black, gray meeting green, black meeting white. They stood there, two boys leaning against each other on a tower by the light of a wand, and they both knew that there was nothing else left to say.